Yes and with some work, not even hard work he will become better then those who work hard but have stalled out because truth is that no matter how hard one works at something they do eventually hit a peak, which requires natural talent to get you past. Talent ultimately at the higher levels trumps hard work because talent gives that extra boost, the phrasing of the question was rather vague so I dont think its fair to say that 1 person who is talented is also lazy, as in order to even compete he/she would have to put in at least SOME work, even the competition itself is work and improves skill, so what is being argued is the amount of work put in. I think an average amount of work with talent will always trump TONS of hard work with no talent. Especially if we are talking about physical sports or something where being 6'5 and able to slam dunk and nail just about any shot will always beat the hard working guy who is 5'8 and practiced every day. There is a reason why they dont troll suburban basketball courts looking for short white kids to scout for the NBA even though they practice every single day and can nail 10/10 free throws etc, they pick the guy who was always good at it and probably spent more time partying and showing up to hustle those kids on the weekend because he was just better off the bat.
Well, if the question here is whether or not, all things
equal, talent can get you further than hard work alone, the answer is yes, only because the hard work at that point isn't enough to make up for the difference in raw skill. If the question is whether choosing a highly talented person who doesn't work very hard is better than choosing a person with average talent who has worked extremely hard to improve their skills, and develop
new ones then the hard worker will likely be better than the highly talented one.
The reason behind this is because, simply put, raw talent doesn't mean anything without putting any work toward it. I could have a lot of natural potential to be, say, a UFC fighter; I might have a natural feel for how to fight, as well as an idea how to throw punches, do joint locks, wrestle and generally break someone down in a fight; however, would I want to fight someone who had been practicing MMA for years, though they were just an average fighter when they began? Of course not. Incidentally, I used to take kickboxing, which I was naturally talented at; however, the higher up I went, the less of a difference my talent actually made with people at my level, since other factors like the opponent's size came into play as the others became better and better at it the more they came to class. Obviously, when I had just started, I would never have dreamed of fighting people who were a lot more advanced than I was; even though they didn't have as much raw talent as I did, their
experience would have meant I would have lost pretty quickly.